twas brillig
by darkanine
Summary: It had been a long time since Alice had first dreamed of Wonderland, and nearly as long since she had thought of it.
1. oo Enterlude

_Okay, this one is actually rather old. I published it on a fictionpress account a while ago but someone commented that it fell under the category of 'fanfiction' more than original fiction, so, we shall see. As always, read and review, hope you enjoy.

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It had been a long time since Alice had first dreamed of Wonderland, and nearly as long since she had thought of it. At the age of eight, it was rather difficult to believe that her mind had been capable of such lucid, fantastical thoughts and ideas at the time, but now, twelve years later, she couldn't seem to get the place out of her mind long enough to copy her chemistry professor's lecture on polyatomic ions without wondering if such things existed in that mystical realm that lived in her head.

On this particular golden afternoon in April, Alice sat in class, her large blue eyes glazed over as she doodled absently, staring longingly out the window rather than watching the demonstration of carbon combustion at the front of the class. The prosaic ticking of the clock, accompanied by the drone of her teacher's nasally monotone made for a wholly soporific atmosphere, and she caught herself several times beginning to nod off.

Gradually, however, she found herself unable to keep her heavy lids from closing entirely and unwillingly drifted into a fitful slumber. Her dream world was familiar, yet somehow not. She knew that the world that she was looking at could be no place other than her beloved Wonderland, but something had changed about it. The landscape of the world was no longer the gorgeously lush garden of colour that it had once been; the very trees seemed to have sensed the evil in the atmosphere, their trunks bowing and their branches becoming sharp, reaching tendrils that would scratch and pull; none of the creatures that she had known as a child seemed to be around anymore, but through the darkness of the forest she could have sworn she saw a pair of glowing yellow eyes glaring at her out of the shadows.

"Hello?" she inquired to the void, aware that nobody was likely to answer. She hadn't thought about this place in so long that she wouldn't have been surprised if all of her former 'friends' had died or simply disappeared.

Alice jumped with surprise when she heard an answering voice - a gentle 'hello' from within the trees. Alice stepped cautiously forward, peering around the trees for the source of the voice but found no one there. Disappointed and a little unsettled, she turned around with her hands on her hips, only to find herself nose-to-chest with a tall male figure dressed entirely in black and capped with a tall top hat with a card sticking out of the hat band.

"Hatter!" Alice exclaimed, stepping back quickly and giving the man a thorough once-over. While she herself had grown up, the Mad Hatter seemed to have aged backward. Instead of a bumbling old man with a screw lose, she found herself staring at the stern yet handsome face of a young man with ginger hair and a smattering of freckles across his nose. "You've changed, what happened?"

The man smiled tightly, though it resembled a grimace more than anything else, his dark eyes remaining fixed upon the girl. "You've changed as well, Alice. For the better, it seems. I'm glad to see you're not wearing that ridiculous dress anymore," he replied, inclining his head very slightly and neglecting to answer her question. "We've missed you."

Alice returned the smile uncertainly, taking an involuntary step backward. There was no inflection of emotion in the Hatter's voice, as though he were reading a slide on the sort of bacteria that might live in a pond rather than greeting an old friend. "Well, um, where is everyone else?" she inquired brightly, smiling in hopes of eliciting a spark of the old, remarkably nutty Hatter that she had once known.

Hatter smiled widely this time, the smile still not quite reaching his eyes, though there was something malicious in it. "They're right this way, Alice, waiting for you. We're going to have a tea party to celebrate your return," he told her, removing his hat and gesturing with it toward a gap in the trees.

Alice was not looking where he was pointing, however. When he had taken his hat off, she had seen something she wished she hadn't - a large section of the back of his head seemed to be missing, leaving a gaping hole through which she could see all manner of clockwork and turning gears. She stumbled backward into a tree, her mouth open with horror.

Hatter gazed at her, somewhat confused for a moment, then reached back and ran his fingers over the gap in his head. "Oh, this?" He grinned, a glimmer of what Alice recognized as his old insanity showing briefly as he ran his fingers gleefully over the whirring cogs of his mind. "The Queen fixed me up proper; you see, I was quite mad. When things started changing, so did we. Very unforgiving world Wonderland has become. You can't so much as take tea without some ungodly critter going for your jugular." His maniacal grin vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared and he made a grab for her arm, the sleeve of his black tail coat drawing back slightly from the white glove on his hand and revealing several inches of metallic skin. "Time for tea, we mustn't be late!"

"No!" Alice shouted, turning tail and fleeing into the forest. She could hear the Hatter chasing after her but she didn't dare turn to look. He was closing in, she could feel it, heard his vaguely metallic footsteps growing closer. She was sure that he would catch her, grab her, pull her away -

Alice sat bolt upright to discover that the classroom had emptied out, leaving her alone in the classroom with the professor, who seemed to have been watching her, amused. She stood up quickly, gathering her belongings and exiting the room as quickly as she could, avoiding eye contact with her professor as she scampered past his desk and out the door. As she hurried down the hallway, she was certain that she heard _I'm coming to_ get _you, Alice,_ echoing through the hallway, but in her current state, she couldn't truly be certain of anything. Perhaps a walk in the school's immense garden would clear her mind…


	2. o1 Reunion

It took Alice a little longer than she had expected to reach the lush gardens of the university campus, as she was stopped briefly by a small group of her classmates. She made the visitation as short as possible, however; she found that, in the last several minutes, she had grown impatient, eager to reach the garden as though she was late for a meeting with someone she hadn't seen in a very long time.

As she departed, smiling and waving in a falsely cheery manner reserved for vague acquaintances, her thoughts races as she reflected upon the nightmare from which she had just awoken. From what she had seen of it - which was, admittedly, not much - Wonderland had changed in her absence, and not for the better. Aside from the obviously altered landscape, which she supposed had been bound to happen, something heavy seemed to have settled over the land, suppressing its spirit and addling the inhabitants' minds. If Hatter was anything to judge by, her dream world had become a rather unpleasant place.

She had become so engrossed in her own thoughts that she failed to notice that she had since entered the garden and meandered aimlessly through its twisting paths and carefully shaped hedges. A familiar voice, however, cut her thoughts short and wholly drew her attention.

_"'twas brillig, and the slithy toves_

_Did gyre and gimble in the wabe."_

"Cheshire Cat?" she asked incredulously, peering around a bush, searching for the source of the voice. It was cracked and a little more than difficult to make out, but there was no mistaking him, even after all these years. "Cheshire Cat, won't you come out please?"

There was no response except a continuation of the hoarse recitation, which Alice followed around a corner. She paused, hesitant, for the voice faded a little in lieu of the loud, vaguely echoing ticking of a clock.

Around several more corners she went, though the singing fluctuated in strength seemingly independent of her position. The rose bushes scattered through the garden (all red, the last time she had checked) grew paler as she went, turning from pink to cream to an unnatural white.

"Cheshire Cat?" she inquired timidly. Alice peered around another corner, and, this time, her bright blue eyes lit on a lone, twisted tree flanked by a few white rose bushes. On a level branch at about shoulder level there shimmered a transparent, mirage-like image of a wide, lopsided grin mouthing along with the ghostly echoing poem suspended thickly in the air.

_"And the mome raths outgrabe…"_

Alice watched the sharp-toothed smile twinkle and fade as the song ended on a hysterical note. For a moment she stood slack-jawed, staring at the spot previously occupied by the disembodied mouth, though regained her wits rather quickly. Whatever thought possessed her at that moment would have been torn to pieces by rational Alice, but some irresistible voice at the back of her mind insisted that climbing up that tree was quite necessary to her future safety and happiness.

Of course, even as the shimmied up the smooth trunk of the tree, her logical half was berating her on how very impractical climbing trees in a dress was. Alice brushed the thought off as she edged out onto the thick branch on which the familiar smirk had appeared.

"This isn't so bad," she reasoned, feeling rather confident. However, as she reached out to touch the end of the branch, she made the mistake of looking down. Her hand slipped and she gave a little cry of alarm, tumbling downward with her eyes closed tightly, waiting for a jarring impact.

The impact came, but much softer than she would have dared dream to hope for. She gingerly opened her eyes and found herself looking around at the dim woods from the dream from atop a gargantuan toadstool.

"Oh my!" she cried, very sure that this was not a place she wanted to be. "I must have been knocked out… or killed!"

"Well if you died, you must have done something terrible to end up here."

Alice whirled, trying to find the source of the voice. In doing so, she lost her balance and toppled off her fungiferous perch, the resulting crash this time quite painful.

"Oh my. Still a clumsy thing, aren't you?" uttered a rasping, familiar voice. Alice turned her gaze upward and found a slender, dark-haired young man seated comfortably in a tree, grinning wildly. "Stupid girl."

"Cheshire Cat?" Alice asked, her eyes widening earnestly. She didn't recognize him, but nobody smiled quite like that. "You're… what happened?"

The young man laughed hoarsely and hopped down from his tree branch, pacing slowly toward Alice. "Nobody's called me that in quite a long time. You may call me Phineas." He paused. "As to what happened, I grew thumbs and shed quite a bit."

Alice stared. Could this strange man really be her feline friend from years ago? He certainly had a the mouth for it, but he seemed a little more cynical and a little less helpful. Something about him positively frightened her, though she could not say what.

"Anyways," drawled Phineas, halting before Alice with his hands behind his back. "What brings you to Wonderland, dear Alice? I thought you had _real_ friends now."

"Well, I…" Alice paused for a moment to think. As a young girl, she had crossed over without even realizing it. Now, it seemed as though she had to be unconscious in order to pass through the figurative looking glass. "I fell asleep in class and… I met the Hatter."

"The Hatter, you say?" Phineas asked, suddenly interested. "Where in the world were you that you would have seen that nut? He hasn't been seen since the Queen lost her marbles."

"I don't know where I was," Alice replied crossly. "He seemed a bit off, though… Now that I think about it, he had a chunk of his head missing."

Phineas' expression reverted to disinterested apathy. "Oh. He's gotten better." Alice shot him a baffled look and he went on to explain, "The Hatter you met was a clockwork being, not the real thing. Hatter's obsessed with the things, but I didn't know he could make sentient Timepieces now."

"Timepieces?" Alice asked a little skeptically. As complicated as clocks surely were, a mechanical human had to be… _more_ complicated.

"That's about all they used to be," Phineas said, lazily beginning to stroll away. He walked straight through the trunk of a tree and appeared on the other side, examining his shoes pensively. "They couldn't talk, they couldn't fight, they could _barely_ move… If you took one apart, however, their heart is a nice pocket watch. Excellent craftsmanship." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of ornate gold watches, cackling malevolently.

Alice followed as well as she could, ducking branches and trying not to trip on the gnarled roots jutting like cadaverous hands from the earth to grab her. "I don't understand. If they are - were - so useless, why did he make them?"

"Well, little miss, unlike the rest of Wonderland, the Hatter has become less and less mad since you abandoned us. I'd imagine that he has the presence of mind to work toward a goal - say, the ability to create functional Timepieces like the one you encountered earlier. He paused to watch an ant crawl over a tree root, then turned his luminous eyes on Alice. "I'll ask again… Why are you here?"

"I don't know," she replied, now sounding a little unsure of herself. "I suppose the Queen summoned me for tea."

Phineas chuckled quietly, shaking his head. "Doubtful. You're stupider than I remember…" He leaned against a tree, scrutinizing the girl. "No, I think Hatter summoned you. He must be planning something."

"I thought the Queen was in charge," Alice said with dismay. However Wonderland had changed, its confusion and lack of logic had not.

"So she is," Phineas replied simply. "But she's too stupid to pick her nose on her own, so Hatter… _suggests_ things and she puts them into action."

"So, if you got rid of the Hatter, everything would go back to normal," Alice said reasonably.

"Not at all. I made most of that up, actually. It's Ansel I'd worry about. He was a Jabberwock, originally. The rest of them are extinct, thankfully, they're nasty bleeders," the cat said unconcernedly.

"Well, wait, what all did you make up?" Alice asked, bristling. "I can't help you if you won't be straight with me, you know."

Phineas clapped his hands and a grin spread across his features. "You'll help us then? Excellent! Right this way, my dear, do your best not to flail about."

Before Alice could open her mouth, she found herself being shoved headfirst through a very small hole in the tree Phineas had been leaning against. She tried to shout but any sound she might have made was lost in a flurry of color rushing past her - and suddenly she was standing in a dimly-lit room, completely alone.


	3. o3 Exposition

**It's been a while. I won't try to explain my absence because I don't really have a good excuse. Regardless, here's the next chapter. :3**

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From the looks of her surroundings, Alice guessed that she was inside a tree. Torch-like, fluorescent mushrooms adorned the walls and lit a way down toward a darkened tunnel at the other end of the room. When she looked up, Alice noticed a crack cut deep into the ceiling through which she could just spot a far-off sliver of light.

"Stupid cat," she mumbled, smoothing her dress and stepping forth into what she strongly suspected to be a termite hole. As she went, Alice could hear faint scratching ahead, though she could not see her hand in front of her face. More than once she thought she felt something slide past her leg but she put it out of mind, lest she should scream.

After an eternity of walking into walls and other unpleasant happenings, she reached another opening lit with glowing mushrooms. A pudgy man in flowing, emerald-green clothes sat in the centre of the room, the mouthpiece of a hookah dangling from his lip. Alice pinched hernose and pulled a face at the putrid smoke filling the air.

"Caterpillar!" she exclaimed through a tiny cough of discomfort.

The man who was once Caterpillar raised his head and squinted through the smoke at the girl. His heavy-lidded eyes widened marginally and he drawled, "_Who are you?_"

"I'm Alice, you silly creature," she replied with a twinge of annoyance.

"That isn't what I asked," he snapped, waving the hookah pipe at her. "I asked who you are, not what your name is."

"A rose by any other name…" Alice mumbled to herself, rolling her eyes. Who was she? She thought she knew. She was Alice, a student, a young woman, unmarried… "The mistress of Wonderland, I suppose."

The Caterpillar nodded sagely. "Much better. Have you come to free us?"

"I… Free you? I'm not sure why I'm here," Alice admitted, folding her arms and frowning. "I followed the Cheshire Cat's song… And… The Hatter! Oh, he was a robot! What's happened to him?"

"He's gotten an upgrade," the Caterpillar told her. He cocked an eyebrow and frowned. "I'm surprised he'd be so bold so soon, though. It seems to me that he's in a pretty cozy situation as it is. Perhaps he's making his play for the crown…"

Alice remained silent, holding her chin and gazing ponderously at the ground. It had been quite some time since she had visited Wonderland, so some things were sure to have changed. The Hatter-bot she had encountered in her dream had seemed somehow malevolent, though she wasn't sure how something made of cogs and gears could _be_ malevolent. It had managed well enough.

"You've gotten smarter," the Caterpillar remarked, startling her out of her reverie. "You have learned when it's appropriate to listen rather than speak."

The girl fought an incredulous expression, opting instead to nod silently. This was the first time she had ever been praised for her tendency to space out. It was a pleasant variation from the norm.

"I can see that you're serious about helping us. I will tell you what I can." The portly man puffed up his chest self-importantly, apparently preparing to launch into a long-winded monolog.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl named Alice – that's you – who created a world called Wonderland – that's here. She was a nice girl, if a little absent-minded, and visited her little world often. As time went on, she populated the world with friends of all sorts with whom she could talk and play. I was, of course, among them, as well as Mr. Cheshire Cat and the Hatter, who I'm sure you remember from about ten minutes ago. We were all tremendous friends had many a splendid adventure. Then, you left us.

"It wasn't so bad, at first. We all simply went about our business as usual – tea at ten, two and four, et cetera. It was actually the Cat who began to change first. He took to sitting in the branches of the same tree for hours at a time, until eventually he just stopped moving from the spot. Then, I believe, he melted. He was a chubby think, you know, but as the days passed he grew skeletal and mangy. Eventually there was nothing left but his heart, beating anxiously in anticipation of your arrival, and his smile, there to welcome you should you return.

"Everything else started fading away, after that. We were still there, in a way, but not existing really gives you some time to reflect upon yourself. Of course, that isn't always a good thing. We'll get to that.

"Eventually we did fade back into being, but everything was… different. Most of my legs were gone, for example. In short, we were all human, or more human than we were previously. Even that wretched Jabberwock beastie got re-imagined, or so I assume – there haven't been any sightings or disappearances recently…

"In any case, our re-emergence into existence revealed some of the ponderings of our fellows. The Gryphon was quite taken with the idea of himself as a knight of Justice, a hero, and so he is. The Queen herself apparently noticed that nobody liked her much, and thus thought herself into a weak, simpering ninny. The Hatter took to counting down the seconds that we spend locked away with only ourselves, becoming obsessed with Time. He's made clear his intentions to take those lost seconds back from you. He's attempting to amass an army."

Alice stared, this time very much ingaged in what was being said to her. "Does he… mean to kill me?" she asked finally.

"He does," came a voice from directly beside her. She whirled to see Phineas standing there, looking very much like he had been there for a good while. "Though he's become a genius, he's still mad. He doesn't realize that, because you created us, his plan to destroy you will be the end of us all."

"And what am I to do about it?" she whispered, her throat tightening in fear. There was nothing more dangerous, in her opinion, than a crazy person.

Phineas and the Caterpillar exchanged a look. "We don't want you hurt any more than you do," the Caterpillar began cautiously. "Keep in mind that the end of you also marks the end of us. Therefore, we – and any of the sane denizens remaining in Wonderland – will do what we can to help you thwart the Hatter."

"And kill him," Phineas added gleefully.

"And kill him," assented the Caterpillar.

"Thank you," Alice choked out, allowing herself to fall to her knees. She had never had her life threatened before and was not entirely sure if her reaction was acceptable, but given the circumstances… It was a lot to take in at once. Revisiting Wonderland for the first time in years, being greeted by strange new versions of her old friends, finding out that some of them were trying to kill her… Oh god, what if the hatter had an army of those dreadful Timepieces…?!

"Alice!" She turned her eyes up to the reassuring grin of Phineas the Cheshire Cat. "All's well, dear, no need to fret."

She nodded resolutely and took his outstretched hand, allowing him to pull her to her feet. She dusted off her dress and locked eyes with the Caterpillar. "Alright. Tell me what I've got to do."


End file.
